She's difficult to miss on the soccer field. She's the one berating a teammate for missing a kick, complaining when a ref's call doesn't go her way, shouting down her coach as he yells advice. On the sidelines, the parents watching her antics shake their heads and roll their eyes. "She's so disagreeable," one father whispers. "It's hard to believe she's having fun out there." I see her mother bite her lip and grip the arms of her folding chair, as she watches her daughter dribble past a defender, then boot the ball into the goal to score.

At 29, Justin Gatlin is a seasoned sprinter who felt like a rookie while winning his first-round heat of the 100 meters Thursday at the U.S. Championships. Gatlin had won the Olympic 100 in 2004, the world championship 100 and 200 in 2005 and what looked like his second consecutive U.S. 100 title in 2006, when he was a superstar in the sport. He had not run in a national championship since then. "I don't feel old," Gatlin said. "I just feel a little rusty. I have a veteran mentality, but I'm actually maybe a rookie.

Susan Callison will never forget how terrified she was when at the beginning of second grade, it took her son, Chad, two hours to complete a simple homework spelling assignment. "I remember working with him on the word boat. I used pictures, everything, to try to help him recognize the word," said the El Toro mother and former teacher. "But after 20 minutes of working, he still didn't have a clue. It was frightening."

Irvine-based Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced positive results Monday from initial clinical trials for a drug to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The test, conducted on 65 people across the U.S., showed that the drug significantly reduced key ADHD symptoms, said Lenard Adler of the New York University School of Medicine, who ran one of the trials. Cortex immediately announced it would take the drug, one of a family of drugs called ampakines, into larger trials.

At first, you don't notice the whispering as a teacher with short brown hair and glasses reads a book about jazz artist Duke Ellington to a dozen children sitting on the padded floor. The whispering is going on at the back of the group, where a blond woman sits cross-legged among the children. "Josh is raising his hands properly." "Jeremy is giving good eye contact." "Jordan is sitting properly." Oops. One anxious, sandy-haired boy blurts something out.

Researchers have found that every hour preschoolers watch television each day boosts their chances -- by about 10% -- of developing attention deficit problems later in life. The findings back up previous research showing that television can shorten attention spans and support American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that youngsters under age 2 not watch television. "The truth is there are lots of reasons for children not to watch television.

Children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are missing critical neural wiring in the brain that is needed for attention, according to a recently released study by a UC Irvine neurologist. UCI College of Medicine pediatric neurologist Dr. Pauline Filipek and a team of researchers discovered that children with ADHD have smaller neural connections in parts of the brain that help humans process attention.

Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that problems with drugs for attention deficit disorders drive nearly 3,100 people to emergency rooms each year. Nearly two-thirds -- overdoses and accidental use -- could be prevented by parents locking the pills away, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Re "Listen Up, Politicians: It's Ears Before Ayes," Dec. 31: The article minimizes the central point that the City Council hearing was for a strip club seeking longer hours and fewer restrictions on its operation. Several colleagues heard these same arguments in a prior committee hearing. During both hearings, I was listening to someone. I was listening to my constituents and other L.A. residents who are concerned about the proliferation of strip clubs in our neighborhoods, and no amount of bellyaching from the porn industry's attorney is going to change that.

Childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder frequently persists into adulthood, bringing heightened risks of additional psychiatric issues and nearly five times the risk of suicide, according to a 20-year study that followed children diagnosed with the disorder. The study, to be published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is the most extensive to date establishing links between childhood and adult ADHD, and between adult ADHD and other mental health diagnoses. Only about 38% of those who had ADHD as children made it to age 27 without either continued ADHD symptoms or at least one other psychiatric disorder, according to the study, which was based on a sample of more than 5,000 people born between Jan. 1, 1976, and Dec. 31, 1982.